


The Charm of Small Desert Towns

by dapatty



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dapatty/pseuds/dapatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and his dad are on a road trip.  They didn't plan to drive through such a strange and creepy place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Charm of Small Desert Towns

**Author's Note:**

> This is all the fault of rhea316 who tweeted the idea of a Teen Wolf/Night Vale crossover and I was greatly encouraged and cheered on by araline-thanks bb!
> 
> Now with a PODFIC made by [araline](www.ao3.org/users/araline)!!! Go forth and listen for she is a DELIGHT!

Ideally, the trip was just supposed to be two guys in a car. One last proper father and son bonding trip before Stiles’ senior year started. Stiles wanted to check out some of the universities in the southwest and his dad wanted to drive him. Mainly, Stiles suspected, his dad wanted to be assured that there was at least two weeks of Stiles’ summer not occupied with werewolves or whatever nightmarish creature that had wandered into town this week. 

It had been nice, so far. The desert was beautiful, in a way, even if it were burnt orange and yellowed sand for miles all under a sheen of heat waves that made the distance blur. Actually, Stiles was pretty sure he’d laid eyes on, not one, but two actual facts tumbleweeds in the last half hour. 

But really, everything had been fine until they hit Route 800 and drove into something so surreal that even Stiles had trouble wrapping his brain around it. 

“Dad, do you feel like maybe we’ve wandered into a Twilight Zone episode? Because, call me crazy, but wasn’t it just daylight and now it’s dark? And what’s up with the sky? It got a green glow to you? Or is that _just_ a cloud? Or both?” Stiles asked. Sudden time shifts and strange colored clouds was a new one. He’d never seen anything like it. Not even in Beacon Hills. Not even after the last year of monsters that Stiles had hoped only to see in books. 

“Maybe,” the elder Stilinski allowed. “I might even go as far to say that it’s weirder than normal. Didn’t that sign say ‘Welcome to Night Vale’?”

“The sign with the weird ‘Sauron’ kind of moon? Yeah, I caught that creepy thing. It’s like a welcome mat- a welcome mat to creepy.” Stiles suppressed a shiver. 

“I didn’t catch the Lord of the Rings aspect of the sign, son.” Stilinski frowned as they got closer to the gas station, passing a crater with a sign nearby that declared it to be an ice cream shop. The sign for Arby’s shimmered in the distance, almost like a mirage.

“And you consider yourself law enforcement,” Stiles scoffed, eyes scanning the street. A man was speaking on the radio now. Stiles glanced down at the console and turned the dial to find the classic rock station they’d been listening too replaced with some kind of NPR stuff. 

“More concerned about other things, kid.” Stilinski rolled to a stop at the red light, face still down turned and lifted an eyebrow at the tall black fence across the street. “Like a dog park that doesn’t allow dogs.”

“That sign really does say that,” Stiles gaped a little. Seriously. What kinda crazy ass town have they stopped at. “And here I was more concerned with this Waterfront Pier over there without any discernible signs of water.”

“That is a totally valid concern,” the elder agreed then frowned at the radio. Which was totally understandable because the guy, whose voice Stiles had labeled as kinda soothing, spoke about dread or possibly dead boy scouts.

“ _That’s right, dear listeners. Remember the event that we’d all promised to forget about involving the boy scout celebration and their scout leader--disappeared into a void to some terrible beyond that we will hopefully never tread? Well, listeners, it seems the glass eyed children are back. Or at least I’m pretty sure they’re the same ones. What with the same unblinking stare, tattered rags resembling the forgotten thoughts of a cub scout uniform and fingers caked in dirt. Dirt into the very roots of their fingernails as if they had crawled out of their own graves. Not that I’ve gone around examining our new visitors fingers. To do that seems just a little bit rude to me, listeners.”_ The voice sounded practically bored at the idea of possible undead boy scouts. Stiles couldn’t tell if he were joking.

“Dad, is this a joke?” Stiles asked looking up just in time to see a boy scout standing on the corner across the street. Well, at first glance, he looked like a boy scout, but his clothes were ragged and his skin looked just on the grey side and he had this completely unsettling blank stare.

“I don’t think so.” The elder Stilinski looked troubled and like he wished he hadn’t packed his sidearm in the trunk of the car. Stiles turned the radio back down. The voice had moved on, mooning over some guy named Carlos.

“You know, I am naturally inclined to be curious, inquisitive by nature and I’m sure you’d agree dad,” Stiles swallowed.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here, Stiles”

“ _But_ , I’ve developed a healthy sense of self-preservation over the last couple of years, especially when any prospective backup is two states west and holy shit! Is that some sort of winged being? Did we just see a creepy angel dad?” Stiles managed not to point at whatever he was looking at. Pointing would draw attention. He’s also developed some discretion despite what Derek or Scott would say about that. 

“We might have just. Two of them actually.” His dad waited for a bad ass looking old lady leading the way with tall winged figures in tow carrying shopping bags cross the street. Shit they had a lot of eyes or was that arms? Or was that arms and eyes _and wings_? Stiles couldn’t tell. Looking at them scrambled his brain just a little. 

“But, as I was saying.” Stiles tried his best to concentrate.

“Yes, we have plenty of gas and I’m just not that hungry to be curious,” his dad agreed, guiding the car further down the street and past a mostly abandoned open air market containing rows of sun-bleached tables and a couple vans parked in the back. Those vans looked shady and one of them possibly contained someone with tentacles in the drivers seat. Stiles didn’t want to look hard enough to be sure. His dad turned back onto Route 800.

“Weirdest. Town. Ever,” Stiles decided. 

A man in a tan jacket waved at their car on the way out of town. Not that Stiles could have told you what the man even looked like, but he was holding a briefcase of some kind and maybe flies buzzed around his face. Stiles wasn’t even sure if he had a face. 

“A bit,” agreed his dad.

They had to adjust their opinion slightly a short time later when they passed through Desert Bluffs.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Charm of Small Desert Towns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/941258) by [araline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/araline/pseuds/araline)




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